Look Closely, Now
by tenrousei-kuroi
Summary: Yuiko must live in the world the adults have modeled for her, and Ritsuka must learn to balance that paradigm with that of his brother's.


**Summary:** Yuiko must live in the world the adults have molded for her, and Ritsuka must balance that same world paradigm with that of his brother's.

**Warnings:** Attempted mind provocation, dystopian society, hints at brother-brother goings on, all the good stuff.

**Canon Compliance:** Timeline has been altered. Takes place before Seimei decides to, er, go out with a bang, as it were. However, Ritsuka is already attending Yuiko's school, so that's a little askew. Also I've only read the first eight volumes of the manga and have yet to see the anime, so sorry if I'm missing some large, glaring plot point.

_I gave up writing normal things an awfully long time ago. But let it be known that, at one point in time, I was capable of writing stories without any bloodshed, stockholm's syndrome, or homosexual incestuous pedophiles. Once upon a time._

* * *

Beyond the place where all the people live, there are countless fields with tall, waving grass stalks and small insects that buzz, chirp, and die when the wind is cold.

This is where Ritsuka goes some nights; this is where he sleeps.

He lays on his back with his head in his palms and one leg crooked over the other. Dirt and grass stick to his hair.

Here it is far enough from the city, there is enough distance from all the lights, that the stars shine, fulgent and in great numbers.

Sometimes they shoot across the sky and Ritsuka thinks if he should wish for anything, he should wish for a change, for a societal upheaval, although he cannot pinpoint exactly what it is he would alter. Something should be different, but what? What would be better?

Maybe it is bad luck to wish on a dying asteroid, anyway. Instead Ritsuka focuses his eyes on the bugs. For the first few hours it makes him dizzy to follow their flighty movements, but then the temperature drops as the night ages. Soon there are goose bumps all up and down Ritsuka's arms, because he has neglected to bring a jacket, and most of the insects head for cover. The few that remain in the sky fly slowly, numbly.

One by one they start to sputter. Their wings stick, catch, and finally stop working altogether. They fall from the sky, dead. The wind carries them just enough that they land gently, lightly, on the ground. Some stick to the tall grass stalks, but they all eventually fall.

And they fall and they fall and they—

And someone joins him.

Ritsuka sits bolt upright, and the figure towering over him is so tall, surely an adult…but no, no it is not.

It is Yuiko, hair in disarray, an extra jacket in one arm and flowers in her other hand. She smiles shyly.

"Is Ritsuka…cold?"

"Yes," he admits.

"Then…" she holds out the jacket. "Here."

Ritsuka stands up and slips it on. He leans his head back so he can look into Yuiko's eyes. He supposes that she has been crying.

She bites her pale lip and bursts several of its tiny blood vessels. "Is Ritsuka…sad?"

Ritsuka does not hesitate. "Yeah," he responds, and he casts his eyes downward.

"All right," she holds out the flowers. "…Yuiko bought them with Ritsuka in mind."

Ritsuka grabs onto the cluster of stems. They are warm where Yuiko has clutched them, where her grip has crushed the miniscule trichomes that cover them, and they ooze a sticky residue onto his skin. The flowers themselves are each a cluster of red, yellow, and orange blooms; recently cut, still healthy and strong.

"Latana camara," Yuiko informs him brightly, and Ritsuka smiles.

"See," he says, taking her hand. "You can be intelligent when you want to be. Thank you, Yuiko, for taking the time to find me, did you search very long?"

Yuiko worries on her lower lip, smearing faint traces of blood onto her teeth. She blinks a lot, then she nods. "Yuiko called to talk to Ritsuka… and Ms. Aoyagi said Ritsuka was sleeping, but…but then Yuiko tried Ritsuka's cell instead and Ritsuka's brother answered…Yuiko hung up on him, it was…startling that he had Ritsuka's phone and he kept yelling and demanding to know where his little brother was. He must be looking for Ritsuka as well."

"Yeah, he's always searching for me," Ritsuka gives Yuiko's arm a light tug. "Sometimes, I let him find me. Come on, let's go, Yuiko. We can crash at your place."

"Shouldn't Ritsuka go find Seimei…?"

Ritsuka shakes his head and smiles a little. "Absence," he whispers, "Makes even Nii-san's heart grow fonder."

The night is dark, the night is cold, and even their warm jackets leave them shivering a little. Only a little, though, as they run hand in hand through the open fields and across deserted highways. There is no moon to guide them but occasionally a glimmer of light from somewhere bounces off a puddle or discarded metal car part and gives them their bearings. The outskirts of the city grow nearer. Yuiko laughs; the wind fills her mouth with stray strands of blonde hair. Ritsuka smiles and for a few steps he runs with his eyes closed.

They reach paved roads and buildings, and so they slow to a walk. There are cars zooming past. Yuiko shrinks back a bit, into the shadows, dragging Ritsuka with her. "They can't see us!" she says. "It took so long to find Ritsuka and now…now it is way past curfew. We are going to be punished. They will…they will…" She hangs her head.

"Not," says Ritsuka slyly, "If we do not get caught. Come on, we can get back to your home without any grown-ups seeing us, can't we?"

"Well…maybe it would have been smarter to stay in the field for the night, at least then…"

"Yeah, that's true… Yuiko, I _told_ you you have brains, if you'd only use them. Now, however, is not the time for logical reasoning, now is the time for a little adventure, come on!" He grabs her wrist again and then charges headfirst across the street. Vehicles screech and brake instantly, exhaust fills the air and the smell of heated car tires is strong and sickening.

But before anyone can clamber out into the road to confront them, Yuiko and Ritsuka are safely on the other side and leaning against the brick wall of a building, panting, and just out of the glow of the streetlight. Everyone drives away.

Yuiko beams. "Ritsuka!" she says suddenly. "Sneaking through the back alleys will get us to Yuiko's home with fewer grown-ups to see us."

Ritsuka leans up and taps her on the temple. "Brilliant," he says. "Fuck the main roads, we can go almost anywhere we want and they won't ever find us."

He turns to march away, but Yuiko grabs him by the shoulder. "Wait," she insists, and then reaches back over her shoulders. "Hoods up, hide our ears!"

And so they do, and they make it through the smoky alleyways to Yuiko's parents' house undisturbed. Ritsuka falls in through Yuiko's open window and promptly stands up, removing his jacket entirely. Yuiko soon follows.

"Your room is nice," he says, placing his handful of flowers on the nightstand, and it is. It is small, and somewhat suffocating, but still it is nice. The walls are covered one hundred percent by magazine pages, posters, and art projects Yuiko herself made in school. Her bed is nestled into the corner, a twin mattress set on a very high frame. Ritsuka has to jump a little to get up onto it.

Yuiko clambers up after him and plops herself down near the head of the bed, sprawling her long arms out over the pillow. She chuckles and kicks her shoes off.

"Ritsuka should…" she yawns. "Make himself at home."

Carefully Ritsuka sheds his shirt, his shoes, the rest of his outer clothing… and Yuiko does likewise. Their clothes make up a neat little pile on the hardwood floor. Ritsuka clambers up the bed and positions himself closer to his friend.

For a while they lay there, minds still reeling from their excellent adventure. Ritsuka folds one hand in Yuiko's and their skin sticks firmly together from a mixture of sweat, heat, and flower stem residue.

They were almost caught and people could have seen them and the grown-ups might have found them and then and then—

Yuiko slips off a hair tie and lets one ponytail fall to her shoulder. Innocently she asks him, "Is Ritsuka going to school tomorrow?"

He shakes his head. "I have this book I want to read…" but he trails off at the crestfallen look on Yuiko's face. She appears so woe begotten with only half her hair pinned up and her skin still so clammy and red.

"But…" she stammers, wringing her hands. "It's art class tomorrow, the class is making sketches and if Ritsuka doesn't come to school then Yuiko will be without a partner." She drops her gaze to the comforter.

Ritsuka remembers that he did promise to always be her partner, whenever she needed one, so that it wouldn't matter that her old friends had abandoned her. He feels that her being so ostracized is largely his fault, anyway.

"Well, okay," he concedes, leaning closer and placing his head on her chest, just below her neck. Ritsuka has recovered mostly from the run across town, and has cooled down substantially, but Yuiko has not. Heat radiates gently off her, making Ritsuka feel comfortably hot. "Art class always starts at ten o' clock," he gently re-winds his fingers around hers. "I will come just for that class, but on one condition, okay?"

"What?" she asks, and she can't resist touching a finger from her free hand to the very tip of his soft cat ear. It doesn't twitch.

"You gotta' tell me what you want to draw with me tomorrow," Ritsuka sits up and stares down at her meaningfully. She reaches out and brushes her fingers across his abdomen, but her hands are too warm to make him shiver.

Ritsuka leans down again, listening carefully, and their faces are so very close.

"I," she whispers. "I would like to draw a picture ofyou and me_._"

Ritsuka beams.

"And I would like to draw it to make it look like a photograph, like a memory. I would like that…because if we forget, then we will have a way to remember."

"Memory is a precious thing," whispers Ritsuka as he trails his mouth from Yuiko's shoulder to where their fingertips intertwine, his words ghosting over her skin and settling in the crook of her arm.

Ritsuka leaves the next morning while he thinks Yuiko is still asleep. He hops to the floor and picks up his scattered clothes. He dresses and then stands on tip-toe to reach Yuiko's face where she lays on the bed, eyes closed but still. He kisses her on the nose and then leads himself out of her house. Both her parents are already at work. He leaves the jacket she loaned him back in her bedroom, folded and set on the nightstand next to the flowers that now sit happily in a cup of icewater, and heads to his own house.

Seimei will be angry with him for disappearing during the night, for not coming home from school on time, and he will surely make his feelings known, but Ritsuka does not worry himself with these things. School starts, but he does not arrive yet, lest he be roped into partaking in a mathematics or calligraphy class.

Seimei would not mind Ritsuka cutting class, because his teachers… Seimei says they are not even people. He would, however, be overly concerned that Ritsuka is not where he is supposed to be at the given moment. This would be infraction number two for Ritsuka in less than twenty-four hours according to Seimei, felony number four as viewed by the grown-ups; and still he cannot bother himself to worry anymore. Instead, Ritsuka combs his raven hair, dons a long sweatshirt that hides most of his tail, and then carefully, ever so carefully, tweaks and pries his kitten ears while staring closely at the mirror.

They blend seamlessly to his skull, soft black fur sprouting up from dark, dark hair. They show the whole world that he is a virgin and a child. Slowly he presses one down flat with the palm of his hand, practicing remembering to scrunch up his eyes as he does so.

Outside the house, a bird dives through the dirty streets, screeching. Ritsuka dashes down the hallway, throws his school bag over one shoulder and runs from the house. A clock somewhere reads nine-forty five.

* * *

After the notepads have been filled with sketches and the students are smeared with carbon and graphite, the situation becomes tense for Ritsuka, and by transitive, for Yuiko as well. When the rest of the children have filed out for lunch, the teacher calls Ritsuka to stay behind and she asks him questions that make him glare and want to draw back his ears. Out of worry, Yuiko waits for him in the hall, trying discreetly to listen in, and at the same time panicking that a teacher might walk around the corner and see her.

The teacher is not concerned with why Ritsuka was late to school, and seems to realize he does not plan on returning from lunch. These are not the topics that interest her.

"I need you to promise that you will tell me if you are not okay," she says, and her sweet demeanor almost suffocates Ritsuka. "It has been nearly three months and neither of your parents has made an appearance here at school."

Ritsuka says calmly, "I am in the sixth grade, my parents do not need, nor should they wish, to hold my hand."

"I would like for them to have come, to show themselves around the campus at least. It is customary for parents to want to scout out the school to which their child transfers."

"I see no reason for them to do so."

Ritsuka's patience is thinning. The teacher leans forward from her desk chair and almost, almost touches his face. She unfurls her long fingers and they brush oh-so close by Ritsuka's cheek. Instead of body heat, Ritsuka feels an almost cold detachment that does not match up with his teacher's eyes. The hand is drawn back swiftly to the desk, and it falls and falls and—

She is standing up, and placing her body uncomfortably close to Ritsuka's.

"You're brother comes to get you most days," she breathes, and her glasses glare over with sunlight, her eyes are temporarily gone. "And he attends the parent-teacher conferences."

Ritsuka involuntarily brightens for the briefest of moments and offers only, "Nii-san."

"Yes, and Seimei is smart and handsome and strong, but I think he is overcompensating for your parents," Teacher is much, much too close now and Ritsuka draws back. "You need to have a group of stable adults to trust, not just one; you can't put all of yourself into one caregiver, Ritsuka-kun.

"Especially someone like Seimei," she adds, albeit with careful deliberation, wondering just how much to say and choosing her words wisely. "He is not quite right, he spends too much—" but the rest of her sentence is lost on an empty classroom, because Ritsuka is gone, sprinting out the door, down the hallway, and out of the school. Yuiko watches his flight with wide, nervous eyes.

Seimei is at home when Ritsuka returns through a window. Seimei's classes get out much earlier than Ritsuka's.

"Nii-san," Ritsuka whispers quietly. He sits down on his brother's bed and waits to be yelled at. Downstairs he can hear his mother absent-mindedly clanking dishes together.

"Ritsuka!" Seimei exclaims. He moves from the doorway to sit next to Ritsuka and places a hand on his head, right between his ears; strangely, he smiles. "You've been worrying me, you know."

Ritsuka nods and presses his face into Seimei's chest. "I don't feel like being here anymore."

"Being where, my bedroom?"

Ritsuka sits up again. "No," he says, and he waves his hand around him. "Here, this place, town, world."

Seimei smiles sadly and rests his forehead against Ritsuka's. "It's lonely isn't it, being one of the only two people on Earth?" Up and down his hand moves along Ritsuka's spine, up and down.

Ritsuka doesn't really understand many of the things Seimei says. He's not sure he's supposed to. Seimei is older, he's the big brother, it makes sense that his words would be too complex for twelve year-old Ritsuka to fully comprehend. He tries not to let it bother him…

…and yet Seimei's words stick with him, they settle in the back of his mind and weigh heavily there. _Only two people on Earth?_ Isn't Mama a person? Ritsuka doesn't know.

Isn't Yuiko a person? She is, this Ritsuka _does_ know.

But he doesn't question Seimei, he would never question Seimei.

"Nii-san, your hands tickle," Ritsuka giggles and squirms around. Seimei smiles.

"Am I tickling you now?" he asks, and his hands slide along Ritsuka's neck and chest, making him shriek and flail.

"Yes!"

"Really?" Seimei places his mouth against Ritsuka's cheek and hums. Ritsuka giggles and throws his arms around his brother. He wants a hug, he wants to be closer, and so the two of them tumble backwards onto the bed, Ritsuka pinned under his brother, hair splayed out against the bright white pillow.

And through everything, Seimei's ragged breath spilling out over Ritsuka's skin reminds him of Yuiko, and for a moment he can think only of her smiling, clueless mask, and the gentle, intelligent person held prisoner beneath it.

Yuiko's parents are never home, and Ritsuka wonders if she's all alone and sad right now.

"Ritsuka?" Seimei's voice cuts through his musings. Dazed, Ritsuka looks up at his brother, who has ceased his ministrations and is staring down at him sternly. "What are you thinking about? What has so preoccupied you?"

Ritsuka glances away shyly. Suddenly all he knows is that he wants to be with his friend; he doesn't know why, or what for, but he wants to see her.

"I miss my friend, Yuiko," he tells Seimei. "From school. Can…can you take me to play with her later?" he looks hopefully into Seimei's eyes. Usually, Seimei does not deny him anything, but then again, Ritsuka realizes he has never really asked for something Seimei might not approve of before. Normally he does not ask for much of anything.

The silence is frightening. "Please, Nii-san?" Ritsuka whispers. "Just for a little while…later…when we're—after dinner, maybe?"

Seimei's eyes do not soften, but neither do they show particular coldness. "You know I would give you anything, Ritsuka," he murmurs. "But I don't like you spending so much time away from me. What would I do should someone take you away from me?"

Ritsuka wants to reassure his brother that Yuiko is only a twelve year-old girl, that she can't take anything from Seimei, let alone Ritsuka, but the words can't find their way to his mouth, and suddenly unable to breath properly, he squirms under his brother's weight.

Seimei does not let him up. If anything, he leans down harder, a hand snaking coyly along Ritsuka's neck and pushing.

"Soon, Ritsuka, I will take you away from that school altogether. You know better than to trust those animals. Soon I will be able to keep you by me always, to keep you safe. Always to keep you safe, Ritsuka, I'll always protect you…from Mother, from the grown-ups…everyone."

Ritsuka nods as best he can and struggles to coil an arm around his brother's neck. Seimei slows everything back down again and now much gentler, he sets up a slow, delicious rhythm. Ritsuka mewls and keens for his brother.

Downstairs the kitchen is a mess. Their mother has all but given up on making anything to eat, and honestly can't remember much of why she was cooking in the first place. Now she trudges up the steps and down the hall, coming to a halt outside her son's bedroom.

Ritsuka's mother thinks that he is not her son. She thinks he is an imposter. She does not like that Seimei spends so much consideration and time on a changeling.

Rigid, she stands with a straight back and her arms pinned to her sides, inflexible, and she stares at the oakwood door without blinking, infuriated by the noises coming from within.

* * *

The day draws to a dreary close, and the sun sets on Yuiko, standing slumped by her bedroom window all alone and hair dripping wet from the shower. She leans her shoulder and her face against the cool glass and everything her skin touches fogs. Gently she traces raindrops with her fingertips, wishing with all her might that Ritsuka has chosen tonight to stay safe indoors, but at the same time terrified of what will certainly befall him if he has.

Ritsuka himself wanders along the crowded street. Everyone is bustling to get home at the end of the work day. It is already dark. He has little time before his presence smashes the curfew laws and he is beginning to draw strange looks. At the moment, though, he is mostly ignored. Businesspeople shoulder past him and commuters shove him out of their way. They would never show such carelessness to another grown-up, Ritsuka thinks bitterly as he sinks to his knees in the middle of the sidewalk after a particularly jarring collision.

He hasn't brought an umbrella, nor a coat, nor even a hat, and so his ears slump. They do more than that, they actually slide with the pelting rain, slipping down his skull until they sit at a pathetic angle, almost level with his actual ears.

Still aching and sore, for these days his is _always_ hurting, Ritsuka reaches numbly up to his head and paws off the fake ears entirely. They fall with a wet slap to the concrete, immediately smashed into the ground beneath the boots of the many hustling adults. Soon they are nothing more than an unrecognizable black smear across the wet sidewalk. Seimei will be angry that he has to purchase new ones.

In a trance, Ritsuka stands, wondering if Yuiko will let him in through her window, or if the open fields have flooded too much to lie down in.

When the clouds clear, the stars will come back, won't they?

Curfew has passed, but Ritsuka is in no danger from the surrounding grown-ups. That is because size and age do not matter; without his kitten ears he is one of them.

Without his disguise, he is invisible.


End file.
